


Haunted Eyes

by Mochas N Mayhem (KoohiiCafe)



Series: Bound in Story [16]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 20:03:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4578084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KoohiiCafe/pseuds/Mochas%20N%20Mayhem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Leonard McCoy who returned to Earth… there was something missing. Some spark she remembered seeing in his eyes before he’d first left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haunted Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> **Title:** Haunted Eyes  
>  **Author:** Koohii Cafe  
>  **Rating:** General Audiences  
>  **Crossover:** BtVS/Star Trek: The Original Series  
>  **Disclaimer:** Since I am a poor chickadee with no wealth to speak of, I think it's safe to say that neither BtVS nor Star Trek: The Original Series are mine. ^^;  
>  **Written for:** [TtH](http://www.tthfanfic.org/) [August Fic A Day Challenge](http://forum.tthfanfic.org/index.php?topic=9537.0)  
>  **Summary:** _The Leonard McCoy who returned to Earth… there was something missing. Some spark she remembered seeing in his eyes before he’d first left._  
>  **Author's notes:** Part of my '[Bound in Story](http://archiveofourown.org/series/301023)' series.

The Jim Kirk who'd come back to Earth after his first mission as an admiral had been hurt, wounded by the cold demeanor of someone he'd thought a close friend. It was a hurt Buffy understood, and she'd tried to offer him what comfort she could, but he'd recovered quickly, throwing himself into his new position, and life had resumed as normal. The Leonard McCoy who returned to Earth, some time after Jim, though…

Leonard wasn't just wounded, he was- _broken_ was the only word she could think to describe him. Whatever- or _who_ ever, she suspected- he'd lost out there, in the entanglement that had reunited Jim with his two closest friends from the _Enterprise_ , had done that to him. It wasn't an obvious break, because he still stopped by for a visit, to get a look at her new place in the city. He still muttered and grumbled and made a face when she told him about her application to the academy, and he still talked about his research, and told her about his plans to take what he’d learned about the Fabreezey medicine to planets who might have use for it. But- there was something missing. Some spark she remembered seeing there before he’d first left Earth to begin his research, and return to the woman he’d left behind.

That, she thought, was part of it. Jim had told her that much, that the woman Leonard had gone back for had moved on. She didn’t think that was all there was to it, though, not with the haunted look that shone in his eyes when he thought no one was looking. No, there had to be more than that.

‘ _Death was **her** gift_ ,’ she remembered from her dream. Not Buffy’s, as it had been before, but another’s. She remembered Spock’s voice, deep and unfamiliar, insisting that she let the very death he had warned about happen, for the sake of their future. Then she remembered the way the three of them had looked together, before, and she remembered the thin, glowing threads that had connected them. That was the answer. She was sure of it somehow.

So, with the brief time they had before Leonard left Earth for his new mission, Buffy tried to make it count. She tried to chase away those haunted looks with laughter, with the most ridiculous stories she could tell from both her home dimension, and about some of the things Jim had dragged her through since Leonard had gone offworld. Some she told at her own expense, such as how many times she’d literally fallen off the horse when Jim first took her riding, or about the tainted beer she’d had in college that had literally turned her into a ‘cave Buffy,’ or how lost she’d gotten the first time she decided to head out into San Francisco by herself. Others she told at Jim’s, including the time _he’d_ fallen headfirst into a gigantic mud puddle during one of their rides. And, slowly, she’d seen that haunted look beaten back, the tiniest bit.

But all too soon he was packing off, ready to head out for his mission, and all she could do was extract promises that he would stay in touch, that they would send messages back and forth, and that if he had the chance, he would visit whenever he was close enough to the system. He left with that broken look still in his eyes, and it made her heart break just a little, despite the knowledge that he would one day get part of what he had lost, with Jim and Spock, back.


End file.
